Review of Magonia by Maria Dahvana

Nice Feather...

Tittle: Magonia

Author: Maria Dahvana Headley
Editorial: Harper Collins
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Country of origin: United States
Pages: 309
Days to finish it: 7
Year of publication: 2015
Personal score: 4/5

Preview: Her world of fantasy… the other world

There are a lot of people, a bunch of them read; but not all the people read the same things, either the same genres. In the actual literature there are a dozen of new genres, one of them are focused to young people, other to millenials and other for adults. In my particular point of view, we shouldn’t label ourselves in a sort of genre, we should read anything we want, if that makes us happy. Anything without caring much about what the others said.

Well, coming back to the main topic of the preview, my world is a real world. A world where nobody likes you, a world in which you are alone and no one cares much about what happen to you. My world doesn’t stop for a minute, and´s always on movement. In my world if you cut, you bleed. My real, depressive but stubborn world. But… her world is a fantasy, her world is a place where the unicorns could live, a place where the love is much more possible than the hate. A world with no pain, with no war, with no suffering. Could you look the contrasts? How different could the worlds be? The fact is that none of those worlds could be possible without the other. They´re inherent. They´re linked.

Maybe in the end I wanna move to the other world… with her. Who could know? Who wanna know?

How did I get it?

 I buy it (at least the half) for my girlfriend and she read it very fast, after that she lent it to me. I wasn´t very convinced, but the world of fantasy really surprised me.  

A little bit of the author…

She is an American author, she had written several novels before Magonia. Aerie, the sequel is the bookstores now. The most relevant she´s been the finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award; also she´s been working with Neil Gaiman (<3) in a book together.

Review

Aza Ray is a young who has a rare lung disease that doesn’t leave her breath normally. She seems drowning in normal air almost every day. Her life tries to be normal, as normal as could be the life of a fifteen girls old. She have tastes very uncommon, but she´s not alone, she have her best friend: Jason, who shares the most of this tastes.  

A series of rare facts appear in her life. She listen her name in the wind, she sees ships in the sky, and get in touch with the birds. She´s trying to make it as normal as she can… so much, that she plans a birthday party. But the day before the party she get a serious stroke…

Through the view of a sixteen years old girl, it presents “Magonia” a book full of fantasy and young love. Aza Ray body´s changing, but not in the normal way, in a very different way. Could she discovers what Magonia is really? Does Jason could be more than a friend?

Opinion

Honestly, I was expecting not so much of this book, the fantasy is not my favorite genre, because the most of the times I prefer the reality. The main idea seems fresh, so this was the main reason why I read it. In the first pages it looked a book totally for young adults, then the same first idea gets well worked, and that´s quite enough for keep in touch with the reader.

I think that sometimes the voice of the narrative changes too fast or too abrupt,      I had to read again to understand what was happening. In other parts were too much fantasy for me, I mean, I understand the resources that the writers of young adults have to use, but sometimes is just too much for me. Enough young love, enough fantasy and enough birds speaking magonian.

I think the main idea is newfangled and that deserve a lot of points, also the narrative is very empathic, you are feeling like a young of sixteen years old. Is not boring at all, but I think there won´t second part for me. I´m done with Magonia.

The language is fine, but (of course) were parts I didn’t get it the main idea or the meaning, this only means I should keep read in English for improve. A book recommended for everyone, for the ogre you have inside or the unicorn that you really are.

What the fuck is Magonia? Can someone please tell me?

Quotes

"If I have to fly, he´s flying with me. If I have to sail, he´s on my ship."

"For a moment, I think about my dream, the interrumpted dream, he walking through the dark air of the undersky. Holding up his hands to me."

"She presses her mouth to mine, very quickly, not the way someone who is dead would, not the way a ghost would."

"For life´s not a paragraph. And death I think is no parenthesis."

"Yes. I know people die. I know that when people die, the people thet leave behind always think something insane happened, because death, by its nature, feels insane."

"In the past few days, I´ve lost lots of things, just check and see how losing feels. For example, I keep losing it."